


Of Bastards and Blood

by thanksforthecrumb



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, yay for characters that don't actually exist yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2566619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thanksforthecrumb/pseuds/thanksforthecrumb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of fluff (?) centering around Anne's relationship with her big brother, John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Bastards and Blood

“Want to play with us, Anne?”

Anne looked up from her game. She was seated on the ground with a cluster of pebbles and sticks. John had said he’d come and play with her soon, had told her that morning. He’d promised to bring the little hunting knife their father had given him. They were going to make their own dolls out of wood. John said he’d teach her how to carve. She looked back at the group of noble children standing before her and shook her head.

“Why not?” one asked, his arms folded across his chest. He was a count’s son. Loud, fussy, and impatient, especially when he wasn’t granted what he wanted when he wanted it. His name was Thomas. John called him Count Bigmouth behind his back (it had more to do with the fact that Thomas was always showering his opinions on people and less to do with the actual size of his mouth, which was of equal proportions to his body and actually quite nice to look at). 

Anne didn’t like Thomas. And she didn’t pretend to.

She held her position on the ground, aware that it made her seem littler, more vulnerable, even though she was of a similar age to all the other children. “I’m waiting for my brother.”

Thomas frowned in confusion. “James? He’s too little to play outside.”

Anne rolled her eyes. “Not James, silly. John.”

“John? Why do you want to play with _John_?” That was Calla, the daughter of a marquis. Anne hadn't formed an opinion on her yet. She was quieter than the others, but even more bossy. Still, she was friendly when she wasn’t with this group, the few times Anne had spotted her by herself.

“He’s my _brother_ ,” Anne retorted, getting angry.

Thomas raised an eyebrow, his frown deepening as he got impatient. “No, he’s not. He’s a bastard.”

That word. Anne had heard that word before, muttered between dark corridor corners, thrown out in passing in a hissed conversation between two lords who didn’t think Anne could hear them. Or didn’t care. But that word. Anne got the feeling it wasn’t a nice word, wasn’t something she should say to her mother. The way Thomas said it was akin to a flung stone; thrown hard and meant to cut deep. Anne brushed it away. Stones didn’t hurt her.

“He’s _not_ a bastard,” she told Thomas matter-of-factly.

“Yes, he _is_. He’s a stupid bloody bastard, and he’s no fun to play with.”

She started to get angry. “He is _too_ fun to play with. You’re just jealous because he’s smarter than the whole lot of you put together.”

Thomas paled to the roots of his dirty blond hair. “I am _not_. He’s stupid, and he’s a bastard.”

“ _No_ he’s _not_ ,” Anne growled, her hands balling into fists in her skirts. She stood up now, facing Thomas and staring at him. Thomas was an idiot. Hadn’t John said as much? Thomas was a dumb, stupid, foolish idiot. What had John called him? Ignorant. John had said ignorant. Anne wasn’t completely sure what ignorant meant (just as she wasn’t sure what bastard meant), but it couldn’t have been a compliment, coming from John and directed at Thomas.

“You’re ignorant and jealous,” Anne told Thomas, eyeing him in satisfaction as the boy’s eyes widened in surprise.

“You’re not much better, either,” Thomas hissed, “spending all your time with the bastard.”

“He’s _not_ a bastard!”

Then Thomas laughed. High and cruel and pleased. Anne nearly stumbled back in confusion. Hadn’t she been winning?

“You don’t even know what a bastard is, do you?” Thomas turned to one of his friends, a dark-haired boy named Christopher who frequented the library. He was polite and kind, as far as Anne could tell. A squire’s son, and acutely aware of the position (or rather, lack-thereof) he was granted. Anne didn’t talk to him much. He was nearly three years older than she, and hardly ran with the castle children. And so she was surprised when he opened his mouth and spoke out against John.

“John’s a bastard,” Christopher told her dully.

Before she could deny it, Thomas cut in. “A bastard is the worst thing to be. The absolute lowest. They ruin marriages and families and countries. And John’s the worst kind. He’s smug when he has no reason to be. He pretends he’s better than all of us when he’s not. He’s a _bastard_.” 

Possibly worse than the words that spilled out of Thomas’s mouth was the way he said them. The way he spoke down to her like she was a tiny child who knew nothing. The way he provided her with this information in a way that seemed like he was helping her. They were nearly the same age, Anne at seven and Thomas at eight.

Her chin trembled in anger. “ _Stop_ it,” she told Thomas. “He’s _not_ a bastard, you’re _lying_ , he’s _not_.”

“Ask him who his mother is. It’s not the same as yours.”

“I _know_ that. His mother is Lady Lola.”

“And who’s his father?”

“We have the same father,” Anne responded, feeling as though she was ripping each word from her throat.

Calla smirked. “Then he’s a bastard.”

Anne formed an opinion on her, right then and there. Calla was thick and ugly. Anne had never liked how her muddy brown hair was always tied back in two braids. It made Calla’s freckles stand out and look like she’d run through a swamp.

“No,” Anne said stubbornly.

“You sound like you’re in love with him,” Thomas taunted.

“I am _not_ in love with him.”

“Yes, you are. You spend so much time with him, and you never play with anyone else. You love the bastard.”

“I _don’t_ and he’s _not a bastard_.”

“Yes, yes, yes!” Thomas sang. “Anne loves the bastard! Anne loves the bastard!”

To her horror and surprise, the rest of the children took up Thomas’s song. _Anne loves the bastard, Anne loves the bastard. Anne loves John, Anne loves John._

“Stop!” she shrieked, glaring at them. “Stop it! _Stop it_!”

They didn’t stop. Thomas had Calla on his arm and they were dancing around in a circle, singing their lies in full voice gleefully.

Anne yelled at them to stop. They didn’t. They kept singing and Thomas kept dancing, around and around. Soon he got blurry and oddly shaped, and Anne didn’t even know she was crying until something wet wound its way down her cheek. She wiped at it angrily. They were all stupid and mean, and crying wouldn’t help anything.

Then Thomas stopped dancing. He fell to the ground. Anne rubbed her eyes and blinked the tears away. The chorus died down.

John was standing over a writhing shape on the ground, his fist raised, the skin around his knuckles torn and red. “Get up,” he ordered Thomas. “Get up now.”

Thomas made a whimpering sound and covered his face, sheltering his stomach with his knees.

“ _Get up!_ ” John roared, grabbing the smaller boy’s collar.

Anne stared.

“What did you say to my sister?” John demanded, clutching at Thomas’s shirt. “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” Thomas blubbered around a bleeding lip. “I didn’t say anything, I swear.”

John clenched his jaw.

“Nothing, nothing, _nothing_ , _please_ , nothing, I swear, nothing!”

John’s fist pulled back, and Anne almost went to him to tell him to stop. But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. Thomas was cruel and mean. He’d called John names, this wasn’t the first time. She found herself anticipating John’s next strike to the boy’s face, found herself holding her breath, her eyes narrowed in savage anticipation. Hit him, John. Hit him hard. Hit him for me, for you. Hit him. Just hit him.

But it didn’t come. John’s hand uncurled itself and fell to his side. He shook the boy and sat him on the ground. “Don’t— _ever_ —speak to my sister again, understand? Don’t even _look_ at her. Just stay the hell away.”

And John threw him a last disgusted, enraged look at the battered heap of a boy on the ground, and turned, grabbing Anne’s hand and leading them both away from Thomas.

He croaked a word behind them, a moan of something. “I hate you.” His words were rough and cracked and trembling with anger. Fear drenched his words; fear of John, fear of losing the respect of his peers, fear of having to tell his father what had happened. Fear. But he was also angry, so, so angry, and it scared Anne for half a second. But only half.

“I hate you,” he groaned out again, and Anne wasn’t sure who he was speaking to. “Bastard.”

She whirled around and kicked Thomas with as much strength as she could pour into her leg. Her toes came back aching and she felt a fierce stab of satisfaction at the pain she felt, for surely Thomas had experienced ten times it. “Don’t. _Call_. Him. That.”

She pulled back her leg for another kick, but John grabbed her and tugged her away. “Don’t,” he told her quietly. “He’s not worth it.”

“He is _too_ ,” she protested, turning her anger on her brother. “He called you a bastard.”

John flinched involuntarily.

Anne stared at him, her mouth falling open. “ _Are_ you?”

“No,” John answered roughly.

“John. Don’t lie. _Are_ you?”

He looked away. “ _No_.”

“Johnny…” She hated seeing him like this, the cold, aloof, icily formal John. He retreated into his armor whenever someone who wasn’t her spoke to him. Even their father, even his mother. He was sharp and annoyingly correct when others were around.

“Johnny, just tell me. I have to know if they were lying. Were they? Are you a—” she swallowed. Somehow it felt wrong to directly accuse him of being a bastard. The word just _sounded_ nasty, even without her knowing the meaning—“a bastard?”

He didn’t look at her and she knew without truly knowing that his blue eyes had gone dark, knew that his jaw was clenched shut, his eyebrows pulled tight. His voice quivered almost imperceptibly when he spoke. “Only if Father wants me to be.”

“Oh,” said Anne, her voice tiny. She bit her lip. “But he wouldn’t want that.”

“Maybe.”

“The point is, they’re liars. Right, John?”

He sighed and turned back to her, offering his hand. She took it, studying the ripped skin around his knuckles. “You shouldn’t have hit Thomas like that.”

He sighed again, deeply. “I know. It was stupid. I shouldn’t have—”

“Yes,” she agreed, “it _was_ stupid. You should’ve thrown a rock, or kicked him. Then you wouldn’t have hurt your hands.”

He shook his head and smiled as he stared at her. “I love you, Annie.”

She beamed. “I know.” They walked back to the castle, hand in hand, and Anne was quiet for a moment. Then, “Did you see me kick him?”

“Yes. You shouldn’t have.”

“Oh, so I suppose you get all the fun, and I have to sit and watch?”

“That wasn’t what I meant. You could get in trouble.”

“So could you.”

“Father can’t stay angry at you. He lives for being angry at me.”

“Now _you’re_ lying.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“I hope you kicked him very hard.”

“You just said I shouldn’t have kicked him!”

“Well, you shouldn’t have. But I hope you kicked him hard.”

“I did.”

“I knew I could count on you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I think I've hit rock bottom.


End file.
